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Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Macaron Madness!

Hey readers who's a better blogger than me the wonderful Amy Willow, that's who. I've kidnapped her just for you just for today enjoy but don't get used to it.
Hey everyone! I must say I feel rather honoured to be a guest here at Vote Snax-on, and I have something which I think is pretty special to share with you all. Sweets aren’t exactly my forte like they are Roy’s, however, I am rather partial to one of these when I come by them:

My precious.....

Oh yes, the wondrous macaron! For those of you who don’t know, a macaron (not to be confused with macaroon, the sickly coconut, chocolate things with rice paper on the bottom that you find in most supermarkets over here) is a pair of light almond flavoured biscuits sandwiched together by some sort of cream or jam. However, they are not just plain almond flavour, oh no. They come in a variety of flavours, but all have that basic nutty taste underneath which is what makes them so yummy.

I’ve always found macarons hard to come by, probably on account of living out in the sticks. But I’ve always had a weird obsession with them, which I must admit could stem from how pretty they are. I mean, they’re freakin’ rainbow coloured, look at them! To my surprise and joy when I last went into my nearest city I discovered that a Patisserie Valerie, a chain of classy French cafes, had opened up and they sold macarons.This makes sense as macarons are from France, although they are also popular in Japan (but over there they are spelled with a ‘k’ as you cannot write a ‘c’ by itself in Japanese. Random fact right there!) So anyway, of course I had to buy some. They came all wrapped up in cellophane and a cute paper bag, so swish.

I felt very fancy carrying this bag!

I got six macarons in total, one of each flavour they do: raspberry, coffee, lemon, vanilla, chocolate and pistachio. I was surprised that the pink one was raspberry as usually pink macarons are rose flavoured, but this only made me more eager to try it. When I opened the bag I was hit by the soft, sweet scents of almond and sugar. Not overpowering, just subtle enough to be pleasant and enticing.

I felt like I should take some in depth photos for this review, so here you go:

If I didn't know better I'd say this was wasabi!

Dissection time...

It took me a few days to munch my way through them all, but I have to say that the lemon one was my favourite. It was refreshing in the way that only citrus is, and had a proper fruity taste which was not at all synthetic. All of the macarons were like this though; they all tasted like of exactly what they were supposed to with no hint of anything fake or dodgy. However, I found the chocolate and coffee ones very rich and the chocolate especially was quite sickly and heavy. Instead of a thin cream in the middle like the others it had a dark chocolate paste which was highly cocoa-y and so pretty bland. The raspberry one too was a bit of a let down. It was nicely fruity like the lemon, but the jam holding it together was sticky and more sugary than fruity. The vanilla and pistachio ones made up for it though! Despite the unappealing green colour of the pistachio it had a brilliant nutty flavour on account of the underlying almond, and the cream was soft and refreshing like in the lemon one. The vanilla too, although slightly more basic in flavour, was light and satisfying. Plus they all had that great crumbly, melt in the mouth texture. Crunchy, yet squidgy. Aerated sponge encased by brittle, almond-y sugar. Perfection.

All in all I was definitely impressed with Patisserie Valerie. At least they make their macarons properly, even if some of the flavours aren’t to my liking. I’m sure someone else might appreciate thick jam and seductive dark chocolate. I would buy macarons from here again for sure.

And a word of warning: if I ever go to Japan and encounter a shop full of these then you will hear the squeals as far away as Pluto.

My Neighbour Makaron!

Thank you to Roy for letting me post, it’s been really fun! And keep reading his blog and supporting him because y’know, he’s pretty damn awesome.